Temperance
by JollyRoger1
Summary: Denver McCallister is a laid back girl. She works on a boat, takes care of her grandmother, and tries to live in peace with her wild family... until she's thrown into a world where giants and madmen are trying to bring about the end of days...
1. Chapter 1 The Dream

Disclaimer and Preface - Denver and all of the people in her world are my creation. I have always wanted to write a character who could move between fandoms in a logical and purposeful way. I believe Denver is my girl. In her first story, she will be visiting the Hellboy animated universe with shades of the comicverse and movieverse mixed in. I do not own any of the Hellboy creations. Mike Mignola created them, I am only borrowing them for my story. I hope you enjoy Denver's adventures.

Chapter 1

The Dream

It was 4:32 a.m. when Denver shot up in bed with a gasp. Her heart was pounding, she was drenched in sweat, and her ears were ringing with the fading echo of dream voices screaming in her ear. As she caught her breath and tried to slow her heart, the familiar headache that always followed the dream started. It was centered right between her eyebrows, sharp, tightening with every breath she took…

"…and getting really old," Denver thought.

Reaching blindly out for the bedside table to grab her cell phone and her glasses, she swallowed a groan and rolled out of her sweat soaked bed. Tiptoeing past her brother sleeping soundly in the bed next to hers, she quietly snuck out the small office turned makeshift bedroom, past her grandmother's room and into the bathroom, closing the door silently behind her. Once safely inside, she flipped on the lights and took a good look at herself in the mirror.

Her wavy sandy blond hair might have been black it was so soaked with sweat. Her face looked wan despite her tan and freckles, and her eyes were wide with panic, bloodshot and still wet with tears she shed during her dream.

"But why…?" she whispered to her reflection.

As she splashed cold water on her face and tried to slow her erratic breathing, Denver thought back to the first time she had the dream. It was over two months ago now and, as time had progressed, the intensity and frequency of her mystery dream increased as well. Thinking back over the last few days, Denver realized the dream had visited her every night without fail for the last three nights. No matter how often she had the dream, however, she could remember nothing about it upon awaking.

The longer Denver stood and concentrated on her breathing, the more her pounding headache and the voices in her ear subsided. Denver sighed with relief… this time the symptoms left quickly. At their worst, the unbearable pain of her headache had made her vision go grey, and it had taken all her effort to remain on her feet. Those times, the voices seemed so loud to her that she felt like her ears might burst from the noise. No matter how bad the symptoms got or how long they lasted, Denver knew the pain would eventually pass and her hearing would return to normal, leaving her exhausted and achy all over.

When Denver told her mother about what was happening to her at night, her mother very calmly put it all down to stress. For lack of a better explanation, Denver had to agree.

Denver put on her glasses and flipped open her cell phone, glancing at the clock. 5:05 a.m.

"Damn."

Even if she took the time to strip her bed and lay back down, she would never get any sleep in before her alarm went off. Flipping off the bathroom light, she quietly opened the door and softly walked through the kitchen and out the back door.

The wet heat of an early Florida morning felt wonderful on her face and hands which were still chilly from her early morning face wash and the lingering tendrils of fear that always held on after the dream ended. Looking up at the sky as she settled into a lawn chair in the center of her back patio, she scanned the few lingering early morning stars, her gaze eventually coming to settle on the moon.

Denver knew that the moon was due to be full tomorrow, and a strong sun moon at that, but this morning it looked small and cold, and very, very far away. Denver had been raised by her father, having almost no contact with her mother until after his death when she was sixteen. He had been pagan, and when Denver was old enough, she had chosen to follow the path of the Goddess as well. When she was very young, Denver's father told her that even though her own mother was not with her, if she ever needed a woman's guidance, she could always see and talk to the Goddess. He told her the Goddess would always listen. Denver's father taught her that the Goddess had many different faces, and that the moon was one of them. From that time on, Denver had started looking to the moon for comfort when her father was unable to provide it. The goddess Denver knew would always more of a mother in her eyes than the voice she heard on the phone once a month as a child, "Call me Gypsy… not Mom."

Sighing, Denver searched the face of the moon for the maternal comfort she usually found there. This morning, even her heavenly mother seemed distant.

Denver's phone started beeping and vibrating from it's place in her lap. 6:00 a.m.

Denver took one last look at the moon, then slowly got up and headed back into the house. Barely thinking as she went through her familiar morning routine, she opened her grandmother's medicine drawer in the kitchen and started taking our her morning doses, placing them on a small saucer and sitting them next to her grandmother's chair along with a glass of water. That done, Denver started a pot of coffee for her family, crept back into the office and around her brother to get her work clothes, and headed back to the bathroom to take a quick shower before the rest of the family started rolling out of bed.

Fifteen minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom dressed and ready for her day job. Her mother was just coming out of her bedroom to get her morning coffee as Denver wandered back to the kitchen to pack a quick lunch and fill up her water bottle.

"Did you remember to get Gran's pills out for her this morning?"

"Yes, Gypsy. It's next to her chair with her water," Denver answered as she washed off an apple and put it in a sandwich bag.

"Because you know she can't do it for herself anymore, and I just don't know what's what in that drawer," her mother continued on, oblivious to the fact that Denver had already answered her.

Denver cut a small piece of bread off a loaf on the counter, placing it in the bag with the apple and a couple of cheese cubes. Her mother's standoffish mood this morning was no surprise to Denver. She had heard Gypsy and her husband fighting the night before after they returned from work. No doubt Denver was at the center of that argument… she almost always was. Her mother's husband, Steve, hated having Denver in the house. Gypsy and Steve had seven other children together and had been completely devoted to each other for over thirty years… with one notable exception.

Denver was that exception.


	2. Chapter 2 The Past

Disclaimer and Preface - I do not own any part of the Hellboy universe, I am just borrowing them for the purpose of this story. There is no Hellboy in this chapter, this is all an introduction Denver and her life. Hellboy and his friends will be making their appearance in the next couple of chapters. Thank you for reading and reviewing.

Chapter 2

The Past

Twenty-six years ago, Denver's free spirited mother, a professional sculptor and want-to-be wild child, left her husband and four young children because of what she later referred to as the beginning of Steve's 'unhappy' years. Gypsy and Steve had met and married while they were in college. Both were art majors with dreams of traveling the country and living off of their art alone for the rest of their lives. For several years after graduating, that was exactly what they did.

Steve and Gypsy, her real name was Helen, were both devout Catholics from old fashioned, second generation immigrant families. Their unusual lifestyle choices after leaving home were direct attempts to rebel against their equally strict upbringings. No matter how hard they worked to shock their parents, however, Steve and Gypsy never once turned their backs on their religion. So, instead of worrying about the logistics of raising a family on the road, Steve and Gypsy treated Gypsy's amazing fertility as a gift from God. After a few years, that gift from God became _four_ gifts from God. With six mouths to feed, art alone was no longer enough to sustain their growing family. Steve's solution to the problem was simple. Steve felt they should settle down, and he and Gypsy would get regularly paying jobs.

Gypsy rebelled. In her usual determined and relentless style, she argued that she could never live the 'normal' life that her mother and Steve's mother did. She claimed that giving up on their dreams would compromise who they were as individuals, and that neither she nor Steve would be able to live like that. Gypsy believed that they should just look for towns more receptive to their art and continue on as they always had. Steve disagreed for the sake of the children.

Gypsy was gone the next morning. She packed her art and some clothes, rented a car and drove to New York state to set up at an art show… alone. For the week long duration of her stay, she did not utter a word to the family she had left at a hotel in Michigan. While she was there, Gypsy also met Denver's father, Neil.

Neil was a professional camp counselor and wilderness instructor. He loved nothing more than the outdoors, good folk music, art, and traveling. Neil rarely worked at the same camp more than one year at a time, preferring to change venues and meet new people every other year or so in order to broaden his horizons. Consequently, Neil had many very different friends in many very different places. One of these friends happened to be a wood carver whose booth was set up right next to Gypsy's.

Neil and Gypsy hit it off immediately. Neil was everything Steve was determined to turn his back on and everything Gypsy wanted to keep in her life. As much as she loved her husband and children, and Gypsy did love them, she just could not bear to give up on her dreams for the sake of her family. Gypsy had lived her entire life working towards her own desires and ideas, never compromising or making exceptions for anyone. This time, however, she knew in her heart she would have to do just that. Gypsy was going to have to change her lifestyle in order to take better care of her children… but she was never one to give in easily or without a fight.

In a last moment of anger and defiance, Gypsy threw herself headlong into an affair with Neil. For the last few days of the art show, she spent all of her free time with Neil and his friends, and all of her nights in his camper. When the show ended and everyone packed up to leave, Neil gave Gypsy the phone number of the summer camp in Louisiana he would be working that summer. Gypsy stuffed the slip of paper into the bottom of her purse and promptly forgot about it.

She returned to her family, guiltily apologized to her hurt and confused children and admitted to Steve that she was wrong, and that she never should have left. After a few tense days, all seemed forgiven. Steve and Gypsy decided to move into a small house in urban east Tennessee close to Gypsy's aging parents. The house was in need of some work, but it was available immediately. They were moved in and looking for new jobs within the month.

It was not long after starting renovations on their new home that the morning sickness began. After four pregnancies, both Gypsy and Steve knew the symptoms when they appeared, and a trip to the doctor confirmed their suspicions. Steve and Gypsy also knew that Steve was the father of this child. Needless to say, Steve was badly hurt, furious that his wife had betrayed him after what had been their first major fight in all the years they had been married. He insisted that the baby be adopted out as soon as it was born, so there would be no visible reminder of Gypsy's betrayal in their lives.

For her part, Gypsy agreed. She believed as her family and her church had taught her, that adultery was unforgivable… she just never thought she would get caught. Gypsy's own parents were convinced that this baby was God's way of punishing Gypsy for her pride and thoughtlessness. The guilt her family, her husband, and her own personal faith placed on her for her actions was almost unbearable. Gypsy thought about aborting the baby and putting an end to her problem immediately, but she knew that the church would never forgive her if she took that path.

Steve began looking for a reputable adoption service, but after rejecting the first few they spoke with, Gypsy had a different idea. Three months into her pregnancy, Gypsy dug through all of her bags, purses and suitcases until she found what she hoped would be the solution to her current predicament.

To say Neil was surprised when Gypsy called him that summer to tell him about the pregnancy would have been an understatement. When Gypsy first delivered the news and told him about her decision to either give the baby to Neil or put it up for adoption, he was completely taken aback. He had no idea how he was supposed to respond to the news, so he did the only thing he could think of… he hung up on her. It took Neil three days of hard thought and soul searching before he called Gypsy back, but when he did, he called with a decision. Neil would rather try to raise his own child, even though he had no idea how to be a parent and even less of an idea how he would be able to afford it, than let Gypsy and Steve give his only child up to a stranger.

The following February, Gypsy gave birth to a baby girl with only her own mother as a witness to the birth. Steve decided he would rather stay at home with his children. Neil was at the hospital in the maternity ward waiting room when a nurse came to tell him he had a daughter. With no objections from the Gypsy, Neil named her Denver Susan McCallister, Denver for his favorite singer John Denver, and Susan after his late mother. Two weeks later, Neil left Tennessee with his new daughter and never looked back.

Neil had spent the last few months before the birth looking for a stationary location where he could find work and raise his infant daughter. He settled on a church run, year round, camp for kids in north eastern Arizona. He had worked there years previously and become good friends with the director and his wife. When he had told them about his situation, they were more than happy to help Neil out. They cleared out a couple of rooms and a small bathroom in the camp's lodge, located just behind the kitchen. The rooms had been used to house visiting priests and church board members until the diocese had given the camp funds to build a small house apart from the bustle of the camp's center for the same purpose the previous year. These three rooms became Neil and Denver's home for the next sixteen years.

When Denver turned five, she decided she wanted to meet her mother. There were always new kids coming and going around her, and she began to realize that some of the kids who were dropped off at camp often had both a father _and _a mother. Denver wanted to know more about her own mother, and since Neil could not tell her very much about a woman he only knew for a short while, Denver decided that the only solution would be to ask her mother in person. Denver was a quiet, serious child, and Neil knew that when his daughter got an idea, she stuck with it until she reached a solution. With this in mind, Neil contacted Gypsy.

At first, Gypsy refused to have any contact at all with Denver. She and Steve had worked very hard to put the incident surrounding Denver's birth behind them. The last thing either of them wanted was to allow Denver into their lives. Neil, however, did not give up. On his daughter's behalf, Neil continued to beg Gypsy to contact Denver. After several very heated arguments with Steve and Gypsy both, they came to a compromise. Once a month, Gypsy would phone Denver to talk to her and tell her what was happening with her ever growing family in Tennessee, which now included two younger siblings with a third on the way.

This was the way things continued until Denver was sixteen. During the weeks when the kids were at the camp, Denver would split her time doing her home school work and helping the counselors around the camp. She would teach arts and crafts, lifeguard, help lead hikes and teach archery. In between camps, Neil would take Denver on rafting and climbing trips. Because the people around her came and went as the weeks and months progressed, Denver never really made friends or develop any strong relationships other that her father. Neil was the center of Denver's world. She loved her life, and was very happy.

For these early years, Denver only knew her mother through phone calls and Christmas cards. Her siblings were only names to her, and Steve was just the angry voice in the background during Gypsy's telephone calls. That August, everything changed.

Denver and another counselor were teaching an archery class to second year campers when Louise, the camp director's wife called Denver back to the lodge. Neil had been leading a hike with the older kids when he had slipped and fallen. As he was falling, he hit his head on a rock. He died instantly.

Neil had no family to take care of Denver after his death, and no money saved she could use to care for herself. She state of Arizona placed Denver in temporary foster care and contacted Gypsy. They informed Gypsy that as Denver's only living relative, unless she claimed her, Denver would be placed in state custody until the time of her eighteenth birthday.

Steve refused, but Gypsy was less certain. He and Gypsy fought about it for days. When the arguments turned violent, they sought counseling with the church. Unfortunately for Steve, Father George believed it was Gypsy's duty as Denver's mother to take her daughter in during what was surely a difficult time for her. Unable to go against the advise of the church, Steve relented, and Denver was sent to live with them.

Denver remembered those two years as the most trying time of her life. She loved her father very much, and his death had hit her hard. Although he had taught her to view death as a part of life, not frightening but natural and expected, Denver was not prepared for life without him. She was even less prepared for life with her mother and new family.

While she lived with her father, she had been home schooled because of the extreme distance to the nearest school. Denver loved her father. He was a wonderful climbing instructor, musician, and poet… but educator extraordinaire, he was not. When she started public high school in Tennessee, she was shocked to discover how far behind she was in some subjects. When it came to history and English, she was years ahead of her peers. Her math was a different story. Denver's father had not been very good with numbers, and he had unintentionally neglected that part of his daughter's education. Passing high school math was an almost full time effort for Denver, but she managed it.

Adjusting to her new home life was even harder, and not easily accomplished despite tremendous effort on her part.

Although Gypsy had been the one to first consider taking Denver in after Neil's death, as soon as she was actually living with them, Gypsy ignored Denver if at all possible. Denver tried to get to know her mother better. She would try to find things they had in common. It did not take long to figure out that the only thing they had in common was art. Denver would try to talk to her mother about their shared love, and sometimes Gypsy would let down her guard and show Denver some of her work. Gypsy even showed an interest in some of Denver's creations she had brought with her from Arizona. Denver often wondered if Steve had not been around if she and her mother might have grown close. Unfortunately, Steve was around and had an uncanny knack for knowing those rare moments when Denver and Gypsy were bonding, and would quickly interrupt. Steve would always find a reason to argue with his wife at these times, and after a while, Denver stopped trying to interact with her mother simply to avoid the fighting which always followed.

Denver's half siblings were no friendlier. The four oldest, Chance, Maddy, Tanner and Alice, were out of the house and living on their own. They had no intention of making an effort to get to know the half sibling who had unintentionally caused many fights in their house when they were growing up. The longer Denver lived with her mother, the less and less frequently they came by. Denver could not blame them. Steve was almost always in a bad mood, and if the older children came by when he was in that humor, he would inevitably take it out on them. After a while, they stopped visiting all together except on holidays. When asked, they would blame their infrequent visits on Denver, claiming they were uncomfortable having her around. Denver tried not to let their remarks hurt her. She knew in her heart that the real reason they stopped coming by was because of their own father, not her.

Denver's three younger siblings were mostly civil towards their new sister. They were all three tall and dark like both Gypsy and Steve, and led very active social lives. Nathan, Carrie and Jenna were the center of popularity in their respective classes at school, and consequently led extremely active social lives. So, when their small, tomboyish half sister who would rather be outside or reading a book than in a mall moved in, they barely noticed. They were rarely home to witness their parent's increased fighting, and when they were home, they were usually on the phone with this friend or that. Denver was always friendly towards them, and so long as she stayed away from their friends and out of their social circle, they were fine having her around.

Steve was the most difficult. He made up his mind before he ever laid eyes on Denver that she was going to ruin his life. He was an immensely talented painter and a very passionate man, but he was not one to accept any change in his life unless he was the one to introduce it. Since he had not been the one to invite Denver into his life, he would never accept her. Steve saw everything Denver did as a direct challenge to himself and the life he had built. He was Catholic, Denver was pagan. Steve was a social person who loved eating out and visiting with friends, Denver was quiet, introspective and had difficulty adjusting to the new social setting she found herself in. But mostly, the reason Steve refused to accept Denver and treat her with anything other than frustration and annoyance, was simple.

Denver was not his child, and she never would be. Rather than accept the mistakes he made raising his real children, Steve chose to take the low road and blame his failures on Gypsy, Denver, and the betrayal that had produced her all those years ago.

From the time she moved in with them, Denver tried her best to reach out to her new family. She wanted nothing more than to find a way to live with them in peace and maybe, one day, she might feel that she belonged with them. Despite her effort, two years later she still felt like a stranger in her own home. When Denver graduated from high school, Steve was adamant that she move out… immediately. Denver expected as much would happen. With little money and only mediocre grades, Denver never really considered college as an option she would care to try. Instead, the winter before graduation, she applied to several summer camps for a job. When the time came to leave home, Denver packed her bags and moved to her new home and her new job at an all girls camp in Maine.

For six years, Denver followed in her father's footsteps, moving from camp to camp every summer, seeing the country and making small groups of friends every place she went. She was content with her life. She loved her work, the kids she worked with and the chance to travel, but Denver always felt incomplete. For all the traveling, she never found a place she felt she could truly call home, and for all of the people she met, Denver never felt a meaningful closeness to any of them.

This is where Denver was in her life when Gypsy called and asked for her help.


End file.
